


The Basement Well (Yoga AU)

by Sister of Silence (EmpressofMankind)



Series: Perpetual Nonesense (the AU-niverse) [6]
Category: Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Alternate Universe - Yoga, Feel-good, Haunted Houses, Lovecraftian Monster(s), Multi, Paranormal, Suspense, the king in yellow - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 15:37:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14264196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmpressofMankind/pseuds/Sister%20of%20Silence
Summary: New Havenshire has always been plagued by strange occurances, but when the famous writer/scientist couple Etta King (Arlette) and Emmett Castaigne (Emperor of Mankind) show up to set up their new yoga studio at the old hospital things slowly start to truly spiral outside the boundaries of physics.





	The Basement Well (Yoga AU)

**Author's Note:**

> My contribution to the multi-author Yoga AU

New Havenshire was a quaint little English town. By which those from beyond the coastal county meant: 'strange occurrences happen here and the locals refuse to talk about it'. No one was certain when the odd happenings first started, but everyone was sure the old hospital at the end of wharfstreet saw the worst of it.  
  
A brass plaque nailed to the rough brick of the crumbling, man-high wall enclosing the grounds proclaimed one Dr E. Livingston 'haue erected this here workhouse wthn our community to soothe the woe of idleness that sett our poore' in 1637. Though the place was plagued by unlikely accidents from the start, the cling of oakum picking could be heard well into the 1800's. It came to an abrupt end in 1886 when Christmas eve saw an unprecedented outbreak of yellow fever. At the time, it was blamed on the medieval well that provided the workhouse with water. However, unlike dreaded cholera, yellow fever isn't caused by a waterborne bacterium. It would still take over a decade before the existence of viruses was discovered, and the nuns' diligent boiling of the water did nothing to stem the rapidly climbing death toll.  
  
In the wake of the disease, the building was converted into a sanatorium for the long-term and terminally ill. The wars came and went, and many a veteran recovered here from debilitating wounds. The peculiar occurrences waned. The locals praised the wounded soldiers, waging war now at the edge of reality. Distant, academic minds pointed to the filling up of the damnable well and the advent of modern plumbing. For a while, the oddities of the coastal town passed into history.  
  
Yet when the last of the men and women that had kept our country and the world safe left, so did New Havenshire's hard-won mundaneness. The 1950's saw several high profile incidents, including the curious demise of Eduard Stilton. All five cases lead to the old hospital and all of them turned cold upon its threshold. In 1957 the sanatorium gained a psychiatric ward to accommodate those patients that due to their conditions could no longer take care of themselves, the number of which appeared to be ever rising in those years. By 1962 it was a full-time psychiatric institution.  
  
An attempt was made to return it to a general hospital and modernise it in the 1980's, but the lightning strike of 1983 saw an end to that. People preferred the modern hospitals in the big city. New, clean, spacious places reassuringly lacking in any history at all. It fell into disrepair after that. Corax & Daughters real estate bought the building and surrounding grounds for a fraction of its restored value. However, so far all sales had fallen through. There had been plenty of prospective buyers, but they had changed their mind in every instance. Certain local folk implied it did not want to be bought. Maybe that was the case. Or, perhaps, it was waiting for the right buyers.  
  
Branwen Corax’ gaze swept from the brass plaque and crumbling brickwork to the cast-iron gate and suppressed a shudder. Rundown estates gave her the creeps, religious ones more so than any other. An egregiously new chain lock hung twined through the rusted trellis, tangling with the twisting bars. An equally brand new key opened it. It sat on a key ring in her pocket, accompanied by a sizable amount of other keys also belonging to the old hospital. She didn’t take it out of her pocket though, not yet.  
  
She stood before the gate, holding her briefcase as her hand hovered near her pocket, staring at the intimidating Baroque facade looming behind the overgrown courtyard. The four storey building formed the central part of the sprawling complex and had once housed a chapel with octagonal bell tower and spire. Its wings and later Romanesque Revival additions were lost between the crowding trees. The old bell tower cast its long shadow all the way to her feet.  
  
She stood there, admiring it, fearing it maybe. Like a visitor to the zoo, trying to catch a glimpse of the predator inside, but also glad for the stout bars keeping their worlds firmly apart. The rusted gate looked anything but stout. She thought then how ridiculous the new chain was. The gate’s hinges were no doubt rotted through. One good kick and it’d come down, chain and all. Any one could enter the grounds, if they wanted to.   
  
‘But who would want to?’ her thoughts wondered in a tiny voice. Even the local youth left it alone after what happened to Eduard. Branwen shook the thought and took the keyring from her pocket. The keys’ jingle was loud in the morning silence. It was just a building, and an ugly and difficult to sell one at that. The sooner they sold it, the sooner she didn’t have to come here again.  
  
She opened the lock and took the chain off, winding it around one of the bars to store it until she left. The gate opened with an unwilling screech of iron. She left it open, for she was in no mood to wind up locked in again. She crossed the courtyard, minding her step on the cracked cobblestones. Roots had a tendency to snag at your feet here. The well at the centre of the courtyard was as ostentatious as it was derelict. A steel grid had been added to it in the wake of Eduard’s accident.  
  
Branwen climbed the wide porch steps to the heavy church doors. Here too sat a gleaming new lock embedded in the old wood. The lock clicked smoothly. She pushed the ancient doors open to reveal the gloomy vestibule and spacious, colonnade enclosed nave beyond. Dust sparkled in the light filtering inside through the high arched windows at the rear. The alter was no longer there but the dais it had once stood upon was. Imprints of the pew fittings could still be seen upon the chequered slate floor. The debris had been cleared but nothing had been restored. It yet possessed the austere beauty of a church but none of its serenity. As if something vital was long since missing.  
  
“Ms Romero?” Branwen called. “Ms Romero!”  
  
“Over here, ms Corax!”  
  
Branwen turned to find the young woman sitting on one of sedilia set in the western wall of the chancel. She wore a cute floral dress that draped artfully around her large figure. She’d combined it with a glimmering mauve scarf and long strings of neon coloured beads. A stack of papers sat on her lap and her cane leaned against the seat beside her. “Good morning ms Romero,” Branwen said as she crossed the transept towards her.  
  
“Hello, ms Corax,” Alise Romero returned as she stacked her papers. “Do excuse me if I don’t rise, today is not a good day.”  
  
“No need to,” Branwen returned. That the young woman felt worse than usual today made her request weigh heavier still.   
  
Alise cocked her head sideways as she looked up at the raven-haired woman. “There was something you wanted to ask me?” she enquired.  
  
“Yes, though if it’s not a good day then I don’t want to bother you,” Branwen replied. She’d find a way to resolve this.  
  
“You have already bothered me by asking me to come down,” Alise replied, though she smiled. “You might as well tell me.”  
  
“As you know, prospective buyers will visit today,” Branwen said, and Alise nodded. “I had hoped you might be able to divert mr Tal’kyr’s attention.”  
  
“Divert me from what?”  
  
Branwen all but jumped out of her skin at the raspy voice behind her. For someone that large Angron Tal’kyr shouldn’t be able to move that quietly. “Mr Tal’kyr! How nice of you to join us!” Branwen said, rather more loudly than she’d meant to, as she turned around to face the man towering over her. He wore jean overalls that had seen better days and appeared to have been intended for someone less broad in the chest. There was a whole lot of muscly everything visible on all sides.  
  
“The boredom of life,” Alise replied smoothly as she took her cane and rose, papers under her arm. “There’s a farmer’s market down mill lane, would you like to join me? I could use your help.”  
  
Angron nodded. “Yes.”  
  
Branwen breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the two of them leave across the transept and down the north wing. The last time she’d shown prospective buyers around, it had resulted in Angron chasing them out of the gardens and around the cloister with a forehammer. Needless to say, they had not purchased the estate.   
  
The outside pull bell rang, loud and jarring. The buyers! Branwen straightened her jacket and hurried back up the aisle to the front doors.  Through the frosted glass she could see a woman. She appeared of average height but twice as broad in the shoulders as Branwen herself. She wore something bright turquoise. When Branwen opened the door and the woman turned to face her, Branwen’s heart skipped a beat.  
  
Intense green eyes, small full lips, skin the soft brown of imperial topaz, elaborately shorn up raven black hair. Etta King. _Etta King_. The world famous horror writer. She’d read ‘Them’ so fast it was a miracle the pages hadn’t caught fire! However, the prospective buyer was ‘A. Castaigne-King’. _King_. How had she not?   
  
Etta wasn’t alone. Someone stood beside her. Tall, similar complexion but with cheekbones like cliffs and amber eyes. He smiled and Branwen’s heart sank into the pit of her stomach. “Emmett Castaigne,” he introduced himself from behind the curtain of waist length brown hair obscuring half his face. He wore a pastel pink turtleneck under a beige suit and a turkoise bowtie that matched the one worn by the shiba inu sitting in his leather messenger bag. The dog was sitting on a checkered scarf and beige flat cap. It was currently chewing on the corner of a note book. In addition to the bowtie, it wore a baby pink dog harness with a sharkfin on it. “And my exceptionally gifted wife, Arlette. We’re here for this mesmerising property. It’s history is quite-.”  
  
Branwen’s heart plummeted from her stomach into her shoes. Wife. Married. When had she gotten married? And why to _thát_? There had been no mention of a husband ever. Or a wife. There had been a girlfriend a few years ago. She looked at her favourite author, who gazed back at her with one perfect eyebrow raised. “Yes, naturally, come in,” Branwen managed as she held the door open for Etta and followed her inside.  
  
“Is this the original flooring?” Emmett enquired as they walked down the aisle. He strode ahead to the middle of the transept, several metres before the dais. The chequered slate formed an elaborate, labyrinthine design that covered the entire crossing. It was worn from centuries of passage. Branwen had not noticed it before.   
  
“Yes, it is,” Branwen answered as Emmett crouched down. The second his bag hit the slate the dog wriggled out. Small and chubby it sniffed the slate floor before trotting an Eulerian path to the centre of the design. Emmett crooked an eyebrow, rose and followed the animal. There was a faded engraving where the dog stood.  
  
“What do you think, buddy?” Emmett remarked, evidently to the dog, as he crouched down once more and traced the outline. The dog sat down and yawned. Emmett chuckled and ruffled his ears. “Fine, fine, go cuddle mommy then.” The dog promptly retraced its elaborate steps before making a bee-line to Etta, waggling as he went on his small, squat legs.  
  
Branwen watched it with mounting consternation, trying to keep her face plain.   
  
“Don’t yawn when daddy talks to you,” Etta said as she picked him up. “That’s not nice,” she added as she tapped his nose. He barked and made the face the breed had gone viral for. It looked as disingenuous in real life as it did on the photos. Etta seemed not to notice or care, giving the dog a cuddle and kiss before putting him down.  
  
Branwen wasn’t sure what to think. Loads of people talked to their pets, right? And the animal’s behaviour could be entirely coincidental. It happened.  
  


**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: A lot of time and hard work went into the creation and publication of this story and as such it is very dear to me. I would love to hear what you thought of it. And please, share this story freely but credit me and link back to me. Thank you!


End file.
